At death, the butterfly

2009/09/10 Lakar Iraizoz, Oihane - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Astronomia

This modest and similar to a butterfly of fragile wings is a gas cloud at about 20,000 °C, the planetary nebula called Butterfly. It is not, therefore, very weak and fragile.

In the center of the nebula is dying a star that had five times the mass of the Sun. The star launched its surface layer of gas about 2,200 years ago and expands to more than 16,000 kilometers per second, at a speed that allows it to travel from Earth to the Moon in 24 minutes.

The image was taken from the restored Hubble telescope, which was installed in May with the WFC3 camera. Receive ultraviolet and visible light that emits nebulae.

Image courtesy of: Recent searches